The Pirate Bay verdict: guilty, with jail time

A Swedish district court has ended The Pirate Bay's "spectrial" with a guilty …

The Pirate Bay "spectrial" has ended in a guilty verdict, prison sentences for the defendants, and a shared 30 million kronor ($3.5 million) fine. According to the Swedish district court, the operators of the site were guilty of assisting copyright infringement, even though The Pirate Bay hosted none of the files in question and even though other search engines like Google also provide direct access to illegal .torrent files.

These two points formed the basis of The Pirate Bay's defense, but the court found them ultimately unpersuasive in its 107 page verdict. "By providing a site with, as the district court found, sophisticated search functions, easy upload and storage, and a website linked to the tracker," the defendants were guilty of assisting copyright infringement, the court said.

In an Internet press conference this morning, defendant Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi compared the whole trial to (of all things) The Karate Kid, a movie in which the good guy is roughed up by bullies, goes through a long training process, learns to "wax on, wax off," encounters his bully again in the final round of a karate tournament, and kicks him in the face with his "crane technique." Kolmisoppi sees parallels. In the end, he insists, "we'll kick their ass."

This might seem a strange position coming from someone facing a year in prison, but The Pirate Bay defendants say that this is only the first round in a lengthy process. An appeal will be filed, and the spirited rhetoric will continue. (Speaking of paying the fine, Kolmisoppi said that he "would rather burn everything I own and not even give them the dust from the burning" than pay up, even if he had the money to do so.)

The 30 million kronor judgment is reduced from the 117 million kronor fine initially sought by content owners, but it remains a significant sum. The prosecutor insisted throughout the case that the three Pirate Bay admins had grown fat on ad revenues, though the men always denied that the site was anything more than a hobby in which most of the money went to pay hosting and equipment bills.

Fourth defendant Carl Lundstr�m, an heir to the Wasabr�d cracker fortune and alleged supporter of right-wing political groups, appears to be good for the money, though his interest in The Pirate Bay was more tangential—he used his telecom company to help the site with hosting and Internet access.

International music trade group IFPI was suitably thrilled by today's news. CEO John Kennedy, who appeared as a witness during the trial, said that the case "was about defending the rights of creators, confirming the illegality of the service and creating a fair environment for legal music services that respect the rights of the creative community. Today’s verdict is the right outcome on all three counts."

The verdict itself was leaked yesterday, with the defendants first learning their fate from a journalist. "Really, it's a bit LOL," Kolmisoppi wrote on Twitter. "It used to be only movies, now even verdicts are out before the official release."

Originally posted by KarmaPoints:Both the prosecutor and entertainment lobby made asses of themselves during this trial. Why did they bother showing up at all? Convincing arguments (read pressure) must have been submitted after the trial.

Originally posted by KarmaPoints:Both the prosecutor and entertainment lobby made asses of themselves during this trial. Why did they bother showing up at all? Convincing arguments must have been submitted after the trial.

if you follow all the news of the entire court case , you will notice the performance of the prosecutor is like playing games and un professional .

I don't understand how the can the judge give verdict guilty when I don't see the prosecutor come out any solid evidence at all .

also the verdict of "accused of assisting in making copyright content available" . as we know that making available is not equal to copyrighted infringement .

do you all remember the case of winny programmer? he also get verdict of assist in copyrighted infringement. but he didn't get that kind of ridicules fines ? not to mention the the prosecutor unable to give solid evidence of such act actual happen.

They'll get bail soon enough, and this means nothing in the long run for those who SHARE media.Even if the site itself were taken down, there are a million trackers to replace it. If the site were taken down however... then certain people would have something to worry about. It would set a precedent for taking down other sites... and certain people would have to move futher underground.

Originally posted by KarmaPoints:Both the prosecutor and entertainment lobby made asses of themselves during this trial. Why did they bother showing up at all? Convincing arguments must have been submitted after the trial.

if you follow all the news of the entire court case , you will notice the performance of the prosecutor is like playing games and un professional .

I don't understand how the can the judge give verdict guilty when I don't see the prosecutor come out any solid evidence at all .

also the verdict of "accused of assisting in making copyright content available" . as we know that making available is not equal to copyrighted infringement .

can someone explain to me ?

Becuase the core of their business model, what drives people to the site, is not sanctioned by law. I use the pirate bay. I steal stuff. But I call it what it is: theft of intellectual property.

Originally posted by Bounder:Becuase the core of their business model, what drives people to the site, is not sanctioned by law. I use the pirate bay. I steal stuff. But I call it what it is: theft of intellectual property.

Fourth defendant Carl Lundström, an heir to the Wasabröd cracker fortune... appears to be good for the money, though his interest in The Pirate Bay was more tangential—he used his telecom company to help the site with hosting and Internet access.

How many levels of indirection before you are not considered guilty? And will they be able to link Kevin Bacon to this somehow?

(Being heir to the Wasabröd cracker fortune surely wouldn't help Mr Lundström's case because everyone knows crackers are not only delicious with cheese, but they are also consumed by pirates and their parrots and hence connote an air of evil.)

Originally posted by Bounder:Increasingly, when the core of your business, what it is that drives people to your site, is illegal then you don't have a legal safe harbor. Time for all the ARS pro-pirates to start rationalizing.

In a righteous fight for justice you cant always be "safe". Hollywood itself has taught us that in numerous movies. If you go up against a big bully you are bound to get a black eye once in a while - it doesnt mean that you should throw in the towel and quit.

I'm not a fan of any of the **AA's or their international counterparts or their tactics. Most of it relies on terrorism and disenfranchises their customers. So I don't buy their crap and I don't download it.

On a more practical level, this will just continue the arms race between the two sides. Bittorrent was never a sensible piracy protocol anyway. The darknets will just grow.

Fourth defendant Carl Lundström, an heir to the Wasabröd cracker fortune... appears to be good for the money, though his interest in The Pirate Bay was more tangential—he used his telecom company to help the site with hosting and Internet access.

(Being heir to the Wasabröd cracker fortune surely wouldn't help Mr Lundström's case because everyone knows crackers are not only delicious with cheese, but they are also consumed by pirates and their parrots and hence connote an air of evil.)

Not only that, but not having had sufficient caffeine yet today, I had to read that sentence twice to understand cracker != popular media term for "hacker" and instead meant salty snack.

Originally posted by Bounder:Increasingly, when the core of your business, what it is that drives people to your site, is illegal then you don't have a legal safe harbor. Time for all the ARS pro-pirates to start rationalizing.

Originally posted by KarmaPoints:Both the prosecutor and entertainment lobby made asses of themselves during this trial. Why did they bother showing up at all? Convincing arguments must have been submitted after the trial.

if you follow all the news of the entire court case , you will notice the performance of the prosecutor is like playing games and un professional .

I don't understand how the can the judge give verdict guilty when I don't see the prosecutor come out any solid evidence at all .

also the verdict of "accused of assisting in making copyright content available" . as we know that making available is not equal to copyrighted infringement .

can someone explain to me ?

Becuase the core of their business model, what drives people to the site, is not sanctioned by law. I use the pirate bay. I steal stuff. But I call it what it is: theft of intellectual property.

sorry we are not living in the world where "guilty until prove innocent" but "innocent until prove guilty" .

how anybody think is another things unless someone can prove it. while the prosecutor did nothing on that, how can the judge come out such verdict ?

you can't judge a person guilty of murder with just what others thinking without the murder weapon and motive .

if things go as you said then we don't even need a court or lawyer . we back to dark age .

Originally posted by Bounder:Increasingly, when the core of your business, what it is that drives people to your site, is illegal then you don't have a legal safe harbor. Time for all the ARS pro-pirates to start rationalizing.

I thought safe harbor was a DMCA proposition, not applicable in this case. Am I missing something?

Originally posted by Bounder:Becuase the core of their business model, what drives people to the site, is not sanctioned by law. I use the pirate bay. I steal stuff. But I call it what it is: theft of intellectual property.

I'm not surprised they where found guilty, because they probably are according to our current laws. It won't change anything though and 30 million kronor + a year in prison isn't really that harsh a punishment.

I don't get why they will even bother to make an appeal. They should just take the punishment, weather it out and then continue as normal. I highly doubt they can win anything by taking it further. Anyone who believes they don't make money from their site is a bit naive. They probably already have the money with lots to spare, or could make it in no-time.

This isn't even a victory for the lobbyists though, TPB have just won publicity, sympathizers and supporters from this spectrial. They can't shut down the site, cause it isn't hosted in Sweden anymore, and even if they could they can't stop it from popping up somewhere else like the last time.

It's a lost battle trying to fight filesharing. They should just make use of it instead. I'm sure there is a way for the "content owners" to make money of it.

sorry we are not living in the world where "guilty until prove innocent" but "innocent until prove guilty" .

how anybody think is another things unless someone can prove it. while the prosecutor did nothing on that, how can the judge come out such verdict ?

you can't judge a person guilty of murder with just what others thinking without the murder weapon and motive .

if things go as you said then we don't even need a court or lawyer . we back to dark age .

So, by your own definition, the TPB fellows are guilty. They had presumption of innocence until the verdict was given today. Now they are guilty, its not rocket science.

However, they can appeal and perhaps the higher court will disagree with the judge in this case. Until then they are guilty and can be labelled criminals.I dont even know what the rest of your post is supposed to mean, they had a trial, they had a judge and defense lawyers.

Originally posted by DigitalAscendant:They probably already have the money with lots to spare, or could make it in no-time.

You know, that was the crux of the prosecution's argument, too!

He didn't provide evidence of this assertion, either!

The money is safely tucked into a tax-paradise bank account they can't trace of course.. Only a retard would keep the money in Sweden after all the debates back and forth in recent years about the legality of their operations, not to mention Swedish taxes. :P

Originally posted by Bounder:Increasingly, when the core of your business, what it is that drives people to your site, is illegal then you don't have a legal safe harbor. Time for all the ARS pro-pirates to start rationalizing.

I thought safe harbor was a DMCA proposition, not applicable in this case. Am I missing something?

This trial was in Sweden, DMCA is US law. But even so, hasn't a number of torrent sites been brought down in the US as well?